


Apply Firm Pressure

by darter_blue



Series: Pressure [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Dom/sub, Eventual Smut, Hurt, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Panic Attacks, Protective Steve Rogers, Rope Bondage, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26543116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darter_blue/pseuds/darter_blue
Summary: Bucky and Steve are (finally out of the back of the truck) tasked with getting themselves safe and getting to Becka.All of the pieces are falling together and this nightmare (dream? does all the amazing sex, does the fact that he's fallen head over heels... does that override the terror of his life having been turned upside down?) might soon be over. They might have solved all of it.Also Steve may or may not have accidentally let slip that he plans on keeping Bucky around - like, post this weird kidnapping holiday. He wants to keep seeing Bucky.Steve does.Superhero, literal enhanced human being, secret government agent, god like creature with biceps that could incite a revolution, Steve.Wants to continue to see Bucky, anxiety ridden, one armed, science nerd, hipster-esque disaster-human Bucky.But they have to survive this first.And suddenly that seems like it might be harder than they thought.For my Bucky Barnes Bingo square: Y3/ (Never meant to hurt you)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Pressure [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696774
Comments: 97
Kudos: 324
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	1. Chase them down

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there folks,
> 
> So, a little warning before we begin. This first chapter has some action - and no real smut. All the smut will be in chapter 2 and *Spoiler* the lovely soft super sexy times will signify the conclusion of this series.
> 
> These two are almost there! But first there's some angst - some violence. And a little bit of hurt. 
> 
> Be aware, this is canon divergent. It has aspects of, but does not comply to, Cap and Bucky's canon journey. 
> 
> As always, if you're new here, I recommend you go on back to part 1, but, as always, don't let me tell you what to do! You're the only boss of you ;)
> 
> ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Steve is driving. Bucky is scootched down in the seat as far as he can go because his ass is kind of tender right now. He had at one stage attempted to put his feet up on the dash, but one look from Steve stopped that thought in its tracks. 

So now he’s just sitting here. Trying to be chill. And failing. Spectacularly.

Because, what the fuck is his life right now.

Becka is safe and sound in Stark tower with her new billionaire besties (thank every god out there). Bucky is on his way to either get back to Nat, or get to a secure location to call Tony (he doesn’t remember which, he feels like Steve told him both and he’s afraid to ask at this point in case he gets a lecture about it). He just got absolutely wrecked in the back of poor Clint's truck (is still feeling a little floaty to be honest). And Steve may or may not have accidentally let slip that he plans on keeping Bucky around - like _post_ this weird kidnapping holiday. He _wants_ to keep seeing Bucky.

_Steve_ does.

Superhero, literal enhanced human being, secret government agent, god like creature with biceps that could incite a revolution, Steve.

Wants to continue to see Bucky, anxiety ridden, one armed, science nerd, hipster-esque disaster human Bucky.

It’s more than his poor gay heart can take. 

Also their lives may be in serious danger… but Steve seems to have calmed down a lot since, well it’s hard to tell if its from the sex, or finally talking to Tony and Becka, but it’s probably a bit of both. And Steve being calm is keeping Bucky calm. So it feels a bit surreal. Which - the entire last three days fit into that category, so Bucky is lowkey getting used to this fish-out-of water feeling that has settled in his stomach. 

‘Buck?’

‘Hmm, yeah?’ Bucky lolls his head back to Steve at the sound of his name. 

‘You okay?’ Steve appears to be frowning a little, which is no good.

‘I'm okay,’ Bucky says lightly, if not a little tired, smiling to show he means it.

‘Uh huh,’ Steve says, still frowning, ‘I called your name a few times, I know I said I want you to sleep, but try not to nod off until after we talk to Tony.’

‘Sorry,’ Bucky says automatically, though it seems like the state he’s in is kind of Steve’s fault in the first place.

‘Not your fault Buck,’ Steve says, like he can read Bucky’s mind. He leans a hand over to brush a wild lock of Bucky’s hair away from his forehead, ‘I shouldn’t have gotten so distracted.’

‘Tony’s gonna be pissed,’ Bucky says with a chuckle. He can just imagine Stark waiting with his phone in hand, pacing up and down some fancy ass room, rolling his eyes, little puffs of smoke escaping his nostrils like a dragon. Okay, yeah. Maybe Bucky is still coming down from his little sex high. 

‘Tony can kiss my ass,’ Steve says, more to himself than to Bucky. 

‘Are we... Did you say we needed to get back to Nat _before_ we call him back?’ 

‘I need to _text_ her back,’ Steve says, glancing at Bucky and then to the centre console where his fancy spy phone is stashed away, ‘I just want us far enough away from where we used your phone that we don’t have to worry about getting tracked.’

Bucky’s heart skips a beat, because that thought hadn’t even occurred to him. And the statement is like some kind of catalyst. Because Steve has barely let that last word slip free before a bright light and then a loud bang rocks the truck up onto only two wheels on its left side. Bucky has his flesh hand clutched around the handlebar in the door and his metal hand digging into the dark plastic of the dash with enough pressure to crack it. But Steve manages to get the car under control before they flip, with a hand on Bucky’s chest to keep him pressed into the seat. 

He looks over at Bucky and does a full body scan with a deft precision Bucky should not be fixating on right now.

‘Get down, Buck,’ he says, voice cold and hard, and Bucky wastes no time, unbuckling his belt and sliding down into the footwell. ‘ _Fuck_. Not an RPG,' Steve is craning his neck to see behind then, 'It looks like a drone.'

Bucky is looking up at Steve from his new awkward position, his head squeezed between the dash and the seat. Steve looks down at Bucky and then back to the road, 'Hold on Buck,' he says, and Bucky braces as Steve slams on the hand brake, doing a one eighty turn with sickening speed, and reaches under his own seat to pull out a gun as the car screeches to a stop.

(Bucky hates guns… he doesn’t know what kind this is, but it looks dangerous. It looks like something from Bucky’s nightmares)

Steve just shatters the window with his elbow, leans his whole upper body out, takes aim and shoots. Once, twice, three times.

For such a scary looking gun it doesn’t make much of a sound. But it's not long before _something_ goes boom. Bucky sees the flash in the air around them before he hears the explosion and then feels the wave pass over the car.

‘It’s down,’ Steve says, lowering himself back into his seat and taking off the hand brake and accelerating, turning them back around. ‘We need to get out of here, you okay to stay down there for a bit?’

Bucky is honestly not sure if he’s in shock right now. He doesn’t feel amazing, that's for sure, and he can tell that he’s shaking. He nods his head though - because Steve’s right, they need to get as far away from this spot as possible. 

‘We might need to dump your phone and the car, Buck, okay?’

Bucky nods again. He’s spoken to Becks now. He can get a new phone. His pictures are backed up… he can’t really focus on what’s happening but he knows that if he just listens to Steve it will be okay. 

Steve is steering with his right hand, the gun is in his lap, and with his left hand he’s crushing Bucky’s phone, and throwing the pieces out the broken window. He switches hands to lean over and grab his fancy phone out from the well in the dash and throw it to Bucky.

‘Can you hold that to my finger here Buck so I can unlock it,’ Steve is holding his index finger out so that Bucky can place the scanner over it, ‘Good, good, and can you type in some numbers as I call them out?’ Bucky does as he’s asked, holding the phone carefully with his prosthetic, hitting each digit with his flesh hand as Steve calls them out. ‘Okay, good, Buck, can you go into the music folder and open up the server folder for Nat King Cole, you should find an icon for a black spider,’ Bucky nods when he sees it, ‘Okay once you hit that it should take you to our secure messages.’

As soon as Bucky has clicked on the black spider a chat feed opens up, displaying a scroll of messages between Cap and BW. 

‘Got it,’ Bucky says, his voice sounding surer than he was expecting, his fingers shaking less now that he has a task.

‘Message Nat, tell her we’ve been compromised. Tell her it’s Obadiah and that we need Fury for this,’

Bucky doesn’t really understand what any of that means, but he types it anyway, The reply is instantaneous.

‘She says she’s organising pick up and to stay put.’

‘Shit, no, tell her no,’ Steve says, shaking his head, turning back to check behind them before looking back at Bucky, ‘Tell her we need to keep moving for now, we need to get back in contact with Tony and we need to get somewhere more secure.’

Bucky texts as fast as his one hand will let him right now and once again the reply is so fast it’s ridiculous.

‘She says dump the car and my phone.’

‘Okay,’ Steve says, nodding, ‘Okay, tell her we dumped the phone, we’ll dump the car soon.’ 

Bucky does and the reply comes immediately. 

‘She says she’ll text back in ten minutes with instructions.’

‘Fuck. Okay.’ Steve says, then slams his palm into the wheel, ‘ _Fuck!’_

Whatever calm Bucky had found completely disappears at the sight of Steve like this. Steve must sense that somehow because he’s apologising straight away.

‘Sorry, sorry. It’s fine, this is fine.’ It doesn’t seem fine. ‘This just pushes our deadline up is all. We knew this might happen.’ It feels like Steve is talking more to himself now than Bucky, but Bucky is nodding along anyway, half out of his mind. ‘Okay if you go back to the home screen and then into the folder for the cupcake game, it will let you dial out,’ Steve looks down at Bucky, ‘Can you do that Buck?’

Bucky nods, ‘Yeah. I can. Yeah.’ He exits out of the chat and finds the folder for games, and the icon of a cupcake, and once inside the app, the screen configures to allow him to make a call. 

‘There should be a contact in there for fondue, can you call it?’ Bucky doesn’t question the request, just does as he’s asked. ‘When Tony picks up, just tell him everything, okay?’

Bucky nods. Though he’s not sure exactly what everything actually _is_ , since he only has about twenty percent of an idea what the fuck is going on right now.

He doesn’t get much time to worry about it though, because as soon as the phone starts to ring it connects.

‘This better the _fuck_ be you, old man.’

‘Uh,’ Bucky is thrown a little by the greeting, but it’s Tony’s voice - he hasn’t forgotten that from only thirty minutes ago - so he powers through, ‘Tony? It’s Bucky. Bucky Barnes?’

‘Jesus kid, you think I know more than one Bucky?’

‘Um, I-’

‘It’s fine, where’s Steve?’ Ah, bless Tony Stark and his lack of etiquette. ‘Put him on.’

‘He’s uh, he’s driving.’

‘Put him on fucking loud speaker,’ Tony is getting himself worked up, and Bucky doesn’t feel like baring the brunt of it right now, but Steve can clearly hear him, he nods at the - well, _request_ seems a little generous - and Bucky holds the phone in front of himself and hits the speaker button. 

‘Tony,’ Steve says, not taking his eyes off the road. And oh. That’s not a tone of voice that Bucky has heard yet from Steve and it's… well… it’s deep and it’s harsh and it sends a shiver down his spine. Which is a nice change from the crippling panic that's trying to take over his nervous system.

'Well, well, well, old man Rogers, you are the fuck alive after all.'

'We're in a tight spot here, Tony, could you get to the point?' Steve says, turning them sharply onto what must be a barely serviceable road, so that Bucky loses balance and hits his head on the dash. He waves away Steve's concerned frown and holds the phone back up so that the speaker isn't muffled into the seat.

'-on't want to hear about who's tight spot you're in, Cap, I've got bigger problems right now.' 

'Tony, your problems and our problems are the same problem right now,' Steve is saying sternly at the direction of the phone, and Bucky tries to squash down the worry that something is happening at Stark tower for Tony to be concerned about.

‘What happened? Wha-’

‘Just tell me everything you need to tell me,’ Steve interrupts, which is kinda rude, but also it’s Tony. So maybe it’s necessary. Bucky feels like there's a whole lot of history here that he might never be privy to. And it’s none of Bucky’s business anyway (which doesn’t stop him from being curious). 

‘Its Obadiah…’ Tony says. And for the first time since their first aggressively awkward conversation at the convention what seems like forever ago, Tony sounds tentative.

‘Tony, _talk to me_.’ Steve’s driving is getting steadily faster and more erratic.

‘It’s… After yesterday, with Barnes disappearing and the shit he pulled at the airport, Jarvis confirming _your_ voice on the phone, that you're fucking _alive_ , I started looking into some suspect bullshit I’d been ignoring lately - Pep’s been on my back about it-’

‘Tony!’

‘Sorry, sorry, anyway, yes. Something really fucking shifty has been going down since Stane took over from dear old dad…’

‘We know, Tony, we have the paper trail,’ Steve says, with less volume, but same intensity. He is stressed, Bucky can see it in the clench of his gorgeous jaw.

‘Okay, let's get to the part where you were _spying on me_ later. Just, Obadiah is currently demanding he be let into the building with a security detail. He’s threatening to break through Jarvis’ protocols by force if we don’t let him in. And I’m,’ Tony pauses and takes a deep breath, deep enough that Bucky can hear a rattle in his chest over the loud speaker, ‘I really don’t want to do that with Pepper and Becka here.’ Bucky holds his breath at the fear in Tony’s voice. ‘I’m not sure how long Jarvis can hold him off.’

‘Oh god,’ Bucky says, unable to hold it back. He can’t even wave away Steve’s sharp look of concern, ‘Becka.’

‘We have air support coming to pick us up, we can be with you in under an hour,’ Steve says - his words are for Tony, but his eyes are on Bucky. Bucky sort of wishes his eyes were on the road…

‘You’re only an hour away! You could have bee-’

‘Tony, Focus! We’re only that close because we’ll be in the Quinjet-’

‘ _Fury_ is picking you up? You’re working with _Fury_! That son of a-’

‘Please stop,’ Bucky says. It’s not loud, it’s not even slightly aggressive. But it stops them both mid argument. 

Yelling is... Yeah. Bucky doesn’t do well with the yelling…

‘Sorry, Buck,’ Steve says immediately.

‘Is an hour going to be soon enough, Tony?’ Bucky asks, keeping his voice as measured as possible. He hears Tony take a breath and then huff it out with force.

‘Maybe. Just... keep in range of contact and get here as soon as you can,’ Tony says, dropping back to a normal volume, but still sounding pissed, ‘But I’m not done with you, Rogers.’

Steve looks like he’s itching to reply to that in some kind of way, but Bucky must have quite the look on his face, because Steve keeps his mouth shut tight.

‘Tony?’ Bucky asks, hating to hear the way his voice wavers, ‘Is Becks okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Tony says, softer now, ‘She and Pepper are trussed up in the top of the tower. Safe as houses.’

‘Thank you for keeping her safe.’

‘She’s a good kid, Bucko. You are too if you believe what she says about you,’ Tony sounds a little wistful and Steve has stopped clenching the wheel like he’s about to snap it off, ‘Just hurry.’

And then the phone cuts out and he’s gone.

‘He must have hung up,’ Bucky looks up at Steve, who has turned back to the road, lip between his teeth.

‘This is all my fault Buck.’

‘Steve.’

‘I did this.’

‘Steve, we need to call Nat back.’

‘Bucky, I can’t-’

Bucky puts a hand to Steve’s leg and places all of his urgency in his expression. ‘Steve.’

‘You’re right. You’re right.’ Steve is nodding. And suddenly they’re pulling over to the side of the dirt road. ‘Hand me that, Buck?’ Steve gestures to the phone and Bucky hands it back wordlessly. ‘I’ll send the coordinates from the phone, they can track us that way.’

‘Are we going to wait here?’

‘We need to leave the car, baby, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ Bucky says, pretty sure his brain is melting from hearing Steve call him _baby_. Because it's not okay. None of this is okay. But Bucky has no choice - he doesn't have the luxury of falling apart here. And he knows. He knows life's capacity to ruin. To maim. He might not be a soldier, but he's been to war.

Bucky can hold his shit together for a few hours more. He might be a disaster of a human being, ninety eight percent of the time. But for that other two percent he fucking shows up. And he can do that now.

'Okay, Buck?' Steve is saying, like he's repeating himself again.

Bucky looks up at him and nods.

'Okay.' Steve nods too. But he's not sure, Bucky can tell. And he doesn't blame him. Bucky isn't trained for any of this. Steve can't rely on him not to fall apart just like he wants to. But that's okay. Because he doesn't owe Steve anything. If he starts to come unstuck at the edges then Steve can deal, and honestly? There's a part of Bucky that really believes Steve wants to be there to hold him together.

He's going to have to unpack that later.

Steve keeps his eyes on Bucky even as he gets himself out of the car. He's gone for a second and then back again suddenly, at Bucky's door this time, opening it gingerly, like Bucky needs to be coddled, and Bucky doesn't argue with him, he just reaches out a hand to accept Steve's help. He lets Steve take his weight as he uses him as leverage to crawl out of the footwell and take a few hesitant steps on the uneven, loose dirt they've pulled onto.

(it does feel really good to stretch his cramped up legs)

'Yeah we're... kind of in the middle of nowhere right now, but we just need to get away from the car, okay?' Steve is looking at him with so much worry, Bucky wastes a little time, reaching up to cup Steve's sharp jaw and run his thumb along it. He leans in and up and gives him a light kiss on the corner of his stress bitten lip.

'Lead the way, Steve,' Bucky says, keeping his voice low and calm, 'I'll follow you.'

Steve lets Bucky pull away but he's wearing the most unreadable expression. Bucky doesn't know what it means. And he doesn't have time to ask. They turn and they start walking (Bucky a little slower, because he is, A - not a supersoldier and, B - has had a few too many of Steve's appendages - fingers, dick, tongue - in his ass in the last few hours, and he's not twenty any more, he doesn't bounce back like he used to).

They walk for a while, lightly jogging when Steve thinks he can get away with it, but constantly checking back for Bucky and how well he seems to be coping. It'd be cute if it wasn't infuriating. And soon enough Steve jumps and grabs the phone from his pocket. Reading the message to himself and then looking up at Bucky. 'Not long, Buck, they'll land and we can jump on.'

'Jump on? Wait, _land_ ? A _plane_? How are they gonna land a plane out here?' Bucky looks around him at the wild trees and uneven landscape of rural bumfuck wherever they are (he's aware he's being really unfair right now, they're not even that far from town if anyone wanted to get pedantic, but he's cranky and he's sore and his baby sister is in trouble, all of this scrappy vegetation looks like the sticks and he hates it).

'It's a special jet, it's actually a design of Tony's,' Steve is saying, Bucky tries not to care about how proud Steve sounds about that, 'It'll just touch down where it can, and it'll take us there in a quarter of the flight time.'

Bucky nods. It's good. It's a good thing. He actually really doesn't want to be on his feet anymore, he's tired (he’s _so_ tired).

'Okay, thirty second and they'll be here, Buck.'

Bucky can hear it now. It's quiet though. Way too quiet to be a real jet. And fuck, he didn't even think about the fact that they'd be in a plane. A _plane_. Urgh.

He can see it soon after he hears it, it's tiny, compared to any plane that Bucky's ever seen before. But it's oddly huge at the same time. Steve pulls him back to a safe distance so that it can land and some kind of hatch opens at the back, like a fucking space craft, lowering down into a ramp for them to walk up. Nat is just standing at the top of the ramp in a black combat vest and fitted black cargo pants, gun in hand, looking like a badass, red bob framing her gorgeous sharp features like she belongs on a catwalk.

‘What’s up fellas?’ she says, popping a bubble with her gum and smirking like she knows exactly why they’re so much later than they should have been. And if she didn’t know before, she certainly can tell from the bright pink flush of Steve’s cheeks. Bucky shakes his head at him. No poker face whatsoever. 

He hears a chuckle from the front of the plane and sees Sam and Clint in the pilots seats. They both look over their shoulders to wave and to see that Bucky and Steve are onto the ramp before turning back to important button pushing.

‘Nat,’ Steve nods, taking a deep breath, ‘Let’s go.’ He herds Bucky up the ramp (Bucky can see the interior of the jet and it’s a lot of flashing lights and weapons, not a lot of comfort…) And maybe Steve is picking up on Bucky’s hesitation, or maybe mind reading is one of his super powers (or maybe he just knows Bucky, which is, to be honest, frightening in its own way) but either way, he reaches over to take the hand of Bucky’s prosthetic and pull him close. ‘This jet is the safest jet in the world right now,’ he says softly into Bucky’s ear, ‘Tony may be an asshole, but he’s also a genius.’

Bucky nods, because he knows that to be true, and also, this is his way to get to Becka. This is his way to get to Becka quicker than any other way possible, and that’s worth all the discomfort in the world to Bucky right now. ‘I’m okay,’ he says softly back to Steve, keeping their conversation as private as possible as they walk up onto the small jet, Nat having given Bucky a smile and then backed into the jet to take a spot in the front, ‘I just need to get to Becks.’

‘I know, baby, we will, okay?’ Steve lets go of his hand to slide his arm around Bucky’s waist. And there’s that word again. But Bucky isn’t ready to think about that right now, or what it means (but oh, he likes it. Wants to keep hearing it if he can).

‘It has seat belts though, right?’ he asks Steve, because he’d really rather not fly without a seat belt.

‘Yeah it does, Buck, come on,’ he pulls Bucky with him to a row of high-backed seats running along the wall of the jet and Clint and Sam nod to him from the cockpit (is it still a cockpit in a jet? Control seat? Bucky has no idea). Nat has sidled up to join them and the three of them seem to be conspiring out of earshot. They look serious, but controlled.

It’s a very different attitude than what Bucky has seen from them so far, and it should be freaking him out to see them with their game faces on, but it makes him calm in a way he can’t describe. Like… they know what they’re doing. And somehow - he trusts them.

Bucky doesn’t know how much Steve told them about his fear of flying - if anything - and there just isn't room in his head to care about it right now. He doesn’t shy away from closing his eyes to the chaos. He doesn’t linger over the fact that Steve has sat at his right just to hold his hand and gently rub circles into the pressure point between his thumb and index finger. He doesn’t have the energy to unpack how good it feels to sit beside Steve and just _be_ , that from the very first moment they met, he felt the calmness that radiates from Steve wash over him like a wave.

He doesn’t have the emotional capacity to wonder what’s going to happen when this is all over.

He needs to know it _will_ actually be over before he can wonder what happens next.

Because what if it's never over? What if everything goes wrong?

It is entirely possible everything _will_ go wrong.

What if they don’t make it in time?

What if this is all just a trap? What if it's all a lie and something horrible has already happened to Becka, and Bucky wasn't there, Bucky was getting fucked in the back of a truck because he has no impulse control, Bucky was being a fucking reckless asshole, he wasn’t-

‘Buck!’

He hears Steve’s voice, not low and calm like he’s used to, but sharp, loud. He looks up from where he’s been staring at the floor, from where his prosthetic has been gripping at his own thigh - hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to break through the skin, it feels like. 

‘Bucky, baby?’

Oh, Steve is talking to him still. He looks worried. And Bucky doesn’t want that. ‘I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m…’ Bucky tries to think of an adjective that isn’t just _okay_ \- but isn’t so far fetched Steve wont believe him, ‘I’m just bracing for take-off, you know?’

Steve is not buying it, if his expression is anything to go by. Bucky takes a look over at the others up the front and they are resolutely not looking back at Steve and Bucky. Clint has his jaw clenched tight, Sam has his hands balled into fists on his knees, but Nat… well, Nat is facing the windscreen, one hand on her hip, chewing her gum and blowing a bubble, seemingly without a care in the world. 

And it helps. Bucky makes an effort to channel that attitude and looks back to Steve. ‘Sorry, I promise I am okay.’

‘You were shaking. You couldn’t hear me,’ Steve says, hushed and frowning.

‘You brought me back,’ Bucky says, he doesn’t smile because he can’t right now, but he leans his body into Steve as much as he can, harnessed into the chair as he is, ‘Just keep touching me, and I’ll be okay.’

Steve doesn’t stop frowning, but he does lean his body back into Bucky so they’re pressed along the length of each other. And he’s so warm, so steadfast, his bulk and his strength and his presence, Bucky sinks into the comfort of him and tries to practise his breathing exercises. He lets Steve’s touch at his hand lull him. And he counts the chairs in the jet. Lists in his mind the things he can see, feel, smell, hear. He focuses on the little things under his control, and he holds out as best he can.

It’s not like flying commercial. The jet is quiet, there’s almost no turbulence, he’s not squeezed into a tin can full of other nervous, sweaty people. It’s a much nicer way to fly. It is still flying though. Bucky is still imagining that at any moment they will just lose an engine and plummet into the ground. 

Get hit by lightning and explode.

Fly into a swarm of angry birds and lose cabin pressure until his eye balls burst...

he Spends too long imagining every potentially horrible scenario but…

It never happens. 

They make it all the way to New York. To somewhere dark and hidden away from the city - somewhere that looks like a tunnel system built into an unassuming hill. The jet touches down in a tiny space, Sam needs to be commended for a level of parking aptitude that Bucky probably couldn’t even manage in his Dart, and Bucky holds his breath while they hit the ground gracefully. 

And then Steve is helping him out of his harness and pulling him up to standing. ‘Just stick close to me okay, Buck?’ he asks, and Bucky nods, because what else is he going to do?

Both Sam and Clint put a soft hand to his shoulder as they pass him by, Nat tucks herself under his arm, like she has a habit of doing, on his left side as Steve grips him tightly by his right hand. 

‘We’re gonna introduce you to the boss, Bucky, and then we’re going to go bring Becka back for you,’ Nat says, still chewing her gum, smile real, eyes alight. It looks like this is something Nat does on a daily basis - no big deal. And maybe that’s exactly what this is. 

(Bucky doesn't really believe that, but he’s trying to)

They take him through a dank entrance to the tunnels, through a chain link fence, through more tunnels, through a hydraulic door that Nat opens by consenting to a retinal scan from a small computer hidden in the wall. 

They are let into a makeshift lobby, that then leads into a much bigger, lighter, cavernous room. The walls are concrete, curved into an arch over head, the lights are fluorescent and overbearing, but it’s clean. There is soft furniture, it's a common room, some couches, some desks, a kitchenette. A tall, bald, bronze-brown skinned man with an eye patch and a goatee is sitting casually on one of the couches, an arm draped across the back, legs crossed, watching them with one intense eye as they filter into the room.

‘James Barnes?’ the guy says, fixing his stare to Bucky and raising one elegantly arched eyebrow.

Bucky fights the urge to shift his feet, ‘Yes, that’s me,’ he says, like it's some kind of roll call.

Sam and Clint have stepped forward to flank Bucky, Nat and Steve, in a line, facing off against this imposing man, dressed in all black and now crossing his arms at them.

‘Don’t you all get cute with me. _You_ told me this was time sensitive, Romanoff. Get geared up, get moving!’ the man says, rising up and striding over to Bucky. The others mumble and step away, moving off to other parts of the structure to presumably get themselves kitted up and ready to storm the castle. Except for Steve, who hasn’t budged. ‘James, I’m Nick Fury,’ the guy, Fury, says as he reaches out his right hand to Bucky. Bucky has to let go of Steve’s to shake it, ‘You and I are going to hang out here while the others go get Stark and your sister to safety.’

‘No,’ Steve says, putting his arm around Bucky’s waist, ‘I’ll stay here with Bucky.’

‘Rogers-’

‘You get no say in this Nick-’

‘Steve,’ Bucky interrupts, turning to Steve and grabbing his hand back now that he has it free again, ‘I need you to go get Becka.’

‘I need to keep you safe, Bucky, the others can-’

‘The others and you, Steve, all of you, need to go help Tony and Pepper and Becks and bring them back here safely.’

‘Obadiah has a small company of armed guards with him, they’re threatening to take the building by force,’ A tall brunette with smooth ivory skin, says purposefully as she walks into the room, her dark hair up in a bun and wearing a kickass jumpsuit in navy blue. ‘Hey, James, I’m Maria,’ she looks over at him for a second as she introduces herself and then back at Steve as she finishes loading her weapon, ‘We’ve got little in the way of entry points, but I’m in contact with Stark and we can get them out from the basement if we act fast.’

Bucky nods along, Steve is watching him, and Fury is watching both of them, while Sam and Nat come back into the room looking bulkier, weighed down with weapons, and Clint trails after them with a bow and arrow. 

‘You’ll be okay here?’ Steve asks.

‘It’s like a fortress, I’ll be fine,’ Bucky says, looking over at Fury and then back to Steve, ‘You need to go.’

‘We really do,’ Maria says, the others moving to the door with short waves to Bucky and an ‘I’ll bring him back in one piece,’ from Sam.

'I'll be right back,' Steve says to Bucky, squeezing his fingers where he holds them tight, 'This is just us getting in, getting everyone to safety and straight back out again.'

Bucky is nodding, as if he has any idea what they will or won't be doing. He has no idea how easy or dangerous it might be. They certainly aren't going to tell him.

'Just, don't listen to Nick. I mean, you can trust him on just about everything - unless it’s about me.'

'Sure, Steve. I’ll ignore everything he says about you,' Bucky says, and he puts as much life into his voice as he has left, to try and give Steve a happy send off. But it's not much of an attempt in the end. Steve can see right through him.

Bucky watches him leave, on his way back to the jet with the others. Steve turns back at least three times to check that Bucky hasn't disappeared while he was turned away. Which would be super cute, if Bucky's stomach wasn't currently residing in his throat.

'They will be fine you know,' Nick says to Bucky as the others get out of view, and then out of earshot. 'They could do this in their sleep.'

'Tony said Obadiah was trying to get in,'

'He's not using any force yet. It's too public. He has his own hired help, but he won't get any real law enforcement on his side to physically break into the tower.'

'Oh... that’s good, isn’t it?' Bucky doesn't mean to make that a question, but he's just not sure what it means, ‘I mean, wouldn’t that make it easier for him, though, to call the cops, discredit Tony?’

  
  


'He doesn't want to tank the business, whatever illegal shit he's doing, gun running and money laundering and questionable experimentation, power hungry stuff, all of it needs the business afloat to keep going, so he won't jeopardise stocks. It won't be a battle.'

'Then why all the guns.'

'Precaution,' Fury says, matter of fact.

'That seems like overkill.'

'Better to have them and not them than need them and not have them.'

Bucky feels like there's something Nick isn't telling him. But he has no idea what it is. And Nick certainly isn't going to just _tell_ him, so what can Bucky do but wait. And wait.

And wait.

He hates waiting.

He especially hates waiting when he has _no idea_ what’s going on.

And everyone seems to be reading his mind today, because Nick has been keeping Bucky occupied asking him questions about the past few days, about what he knows, about what Steve has been telling him, all of which Bucky has been answering as vaguely as possible, he doesn't want to get Steve into trouble and also doesn't want to tell this veritable stranger, exactly _what_ he and Steve have been up to over the past three days. Nick is relaying some of what’s happening in his earpiece, Maria is on comms liaising with the tower’s security detail, Nat and Clint are in the basement getting to the extraction point. Steve and Sam are searching for and neutralising the armed guards trying to force entry into the building.

It’s… a lot. So much could go wrong and Bucky is just sitting here, twiddling his thumbs. He knows he would've just been a liability but, it’s eating him up that he can‘t be there for Becka. Nick must see something in Bucky's expression, like the panic setting in, rooting itself deep, because he offers to let Bucky listen in on the comm channel.

'I could listen too?' he asks, surprised.

Nick nods, 'Wait here, let me get you an earpiece.'

Better late than never Bucky guesses, but it's been half an hour. Nick couldn't have told him this a little sooner?

He leaves the room and comes back a minute later fiddling with something small, pointing some kind of remote at it, and then stands above Bucky who’s still sitting on the couch to place it in his open palm.

'Put it into your ear, it should sit in like an earbud.'

Bucky does as he's told. And he can already hear them. He breathes a sigh of relief at hearing Steve's voice. They've made it into the basement, Tony has given them surprisingly good directions according to Maria. Bucky recognises Sam's voice in the background, he's saying something about not liking how quiet it is.

Bucky hears Steve's voice low and harsh, the sharpness it carries when he's angry, 'Where is Obadiah?'

It's all the warning Bucky has.

The tunnel's lobby area somehow just explodes into the common room where Bucky and Fury are sitting.

Bucky sees the projectiles of dust and debris come firing out from the doorway before he hears the ear splitting boom. He has his arms over his head before he's even thought about it, his metal arm protecting his face, and Fury has jumped in front of him too, taking the brunt of the concrete that has exploded into them.

And Bucky can't hear anything. his ears are ringing like crazy. Black and white shapes are dancing around in front of his eyes. He can feel something wet and sticky running down his forehead and over his face.

He breathes, sucking in huge lungfuls of air. He’s pressed into the couch and his body won't cooperate as he tries to crawl out from under Nick who has collapsed on top of him. He blinks and blinks his eyes, rubbing the thumb and forefinger of his flesh hand into his eyelids, willing them to see again. It seems to work as the scene around him starts to open up, come into focus, the black around the edges receding. He can see that Nick is unconscious, and quickly feels for a pulse, as gently as he can, at Nick's neck. It's there, but it's faint.

There's a lot of blood, some of which is Bucky’s, his head is bleeding, if the pounding is anything to go by.

And Nick has been struck on the back of the head maybe? It seems to be bleeding pretty freely.

The buds in his ears are malfunctioning, or he's temporarily deaf, he can't tell. There's just a continuous ringing, no discernible sound.

Bucky is focusing so hard on breathing, in and out, as much as he can, gasping on every breath, ready to pass out, when he sees it, a huge machine - like some kind of robot on steroids, a bright glowing orb in its chest - taking giant heavy steps into the room, smashing out at the hole in the wall to make it big enough for the robot to fit through.

The face of the robot is lifting off and there's... a man inside. A big guy, pasty white skin with a heavy grey beard and a bald head. A smarmy look on his face.

He's talking, or at least his mouth is moving, but Bucky can't hear a word he's saying. And he can't really move. Nick is still draped over him, his head feels like it's on fire and being crushed by a vice simultaneously. It's horrific, but oddly typical, that Bucky can see the disappointment in the guy's face at how pathetic and anticlimactic his big entrance seems to now be turning out.

Whatever he's thinking, some part of it has to be that Bucky is totally useless, hurt as he is. Harmless. Because the robot suit is suddenly opening out from the front, letting the guy step out easily, like this is just something he does every day.

He's lumbering over to Bucky though, older than he looked in the suit, now that he's out of it. Mean looking, the kind of mean that's etched into a face with sharp lines and a deep centre. As if the whole face is being drawn inwards. And the ringing in Bucky's ears is letting up enough that he can hear the guy laughing. Practically yelling at him he’s trying so hard to get Bucky to hear him.

'This -- -eems -oo eas-' Bucky can partially make out between the laughing and the yelling. It seems like Robot suit man is complaining that this wasn't enough of a challenge.

Bucky is shaking his head, because he wants the guy to just shut up. He wants to be able to hear, he wants the blood to stop running down his face, making it hard to see. He wants to hear Steve's voice. He wants to scream for someone to help them, But he can barely breathe, he's not sure he could speak if he tried.

'-ames, -ames, -ames,' the guy is saying, Bucky can almost make it out now the guy is close enough he's practically on top of him. He's pulling Nick off Bucky and tossing him to the side. Which upsets Bucky, he tries to reach out to catch Nick but his arms are barely working, none of him seems to be. 'I --an't beli--- they lef- you -ere all alone!' the words are still coming in and out. Bucky is trying to shake his head clear, like he might be able to hear if he can just get rid of whatever is stuck in there. 'I --ink thi- -- all your own fault James.' The words seem to be getting clearer now.

'Fuck off,' Bucky tries to say. It comes out more like 'fuh-oh,' but the sentiment is there.

'Let's see...' and it's like a cruel fate, that Bucky's hearing is finally clearing enough that he's going to have to sit through all the psycho shit this guy is about to spew at him. 'Tony wouldn't have even been working on these suits if he weren't so obsessed with your research.' He smiles, and it's _awful_. 'So thank you for this. I'm going to be able to sell these ‘Warmonger’ suits to every country in the world.' He steeples his hands under his chin. He's leaning down over Bucky, who is pushing his back into the couch as much as he can, backing away as much as he can, 'But then bringing Captain America into it. I thought I'd got him out of Tony's life years ago. But here you both are now. Putting these horrible ideas in his head.'

Bucky is trying to will himself through the back of the couch, maybe he can just crawl out through the other side, slink away. Maybe this guy will just let him go and laugh as he makes the most pathetic exit in history.

'You know I thought, with your history, that you'd put up more of a fight than this, James, honestly.'

Bucky’s mind snaps back into focus.

‘Jumping in front of your sister like that. Of a shotgun no less,’ he’s shaking his head at Bucky and Bucky’s whole body is shaking back. ‘How close was it really?’ he’s asking, voice gone soft, ‘Must have been close,’ he says with a smile, ‘To take you whole arm like that…’

And just the words spoken out loud are enough to bring back the sound of the blast. To bring back the sickening pain and then the strange numbness of the burning fragments of shell casing hitting him at such close range. A ten year old Becka’s screams. His mother crying in the corner, just hacking, gasping sobs, and his step father, with the yelling, even after the gun had gone off, just shouting and shouting at Bucky, ‘useless', ‘worthless’, ‘ruined everything’. 

He’s brought back to the present as the guy, bearded and smug and laughing at Bucky like he’s won something, is close, he’s so close now, and Bucky is panicking, he can feel it building up in him, can feel the world closing in on him. He pushes out, knocking the guy back, and falls off the couch onto his hands and knees. And he’s really laughing now, Mr old and bald, Mr smug evil bastard, he’s laughing and calling Bucky a spitfire. And Bucky can feel the phantom pain of his arm where it used to be. He can feel the pull of the prosthetic, the pinch where the nerves connect, can feel it like a slap, the fact that he has it at all, what he went through to get it. What he tries every day to forget. 

He pushes himself up onto his feet, he stumbles and rights himself. The guy is closing back in on him, not in any hurry, laughing again about how easy this is, about how disappointed he is, and something in Bucky goes cold, and he looks over at the guy, at his smug hollow face, at his pinched, dead eyes, and he doesn’t try to stop himself. He lets the punch fly, lets his metal arm lash out, tight to his body and fluid, he aims to jab right through his sick, smarmy face, and he hears the crunch as the arm connects. It may not be able to _lift_ more than his flesh arm, but it packs a hell of a punch, and blood sprays out of the guy's nose. He screams and throws his head back, putting his arms up over his face, But Bucky thinks of Becka, thinks of this guy getting back into that suit and finding her. Blowing anything else apart the way he blew the walls in around them, and he pulls back to punch again, this time a left hook to the temple. And when it connects, the guy just hits the ground like a dropped bag of rotten fruit. 

Bucky turns around and throws up on the ground. He falls to his knees and holds his stomach. His head is light, he hurts everywhere and the room is starting to spin. He crawls over to Nick on hands and knees and turns him over, he’s still breathing. He uses what dexterity he has to reach into his ear and pull out the communication device. 

It’s dead.

And Bucky can’t hold on any more. He’s too tired, it hurts too much. He’s sticky and dizzy and sore. He lets his body collapse onto the ground next to Nick. He lets his eyes close.

He lets his last thought be of Becka, that Steve got to her. That Obadiah, if that’s who that even was, is incapacitated on the ground behind him and he can’t hurt them now. He remembers the feeling of Steve’s fingers in his hair. Imagines them running through it now. And he lets that thought lull him. Until it doesn’t hurt anymore. 

Until everything else is gone. 

And then he's gone too.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I remind you this has a happy ending. Don't be worried! I will take care of everything ❤️❤️
> 
> Next and final chapter will be out same time next week.
> 
> As always, come find me in the comments (I love hearing from you!) Or on Tumblr and Twitter:
> 
> [darter-blue](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darter-blue) on tumblr
> 
> [@beclouise13](https://twitter.com/beclouise13) on twitter


	2. Catching You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Uh huh, uh huh,’ Becka says, nodding, ‘And this brush off wouldn’t have anything to do with a six foot and then some, beefy blonde superhero who calls you ‘baby’ would it now?’
> 
> ‘Never Becks, I would never ditch you for some perfect specimen of manhood, who may or may not be on his way over right now to rail me into this mattress-’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is folks! The finale!
> 
> (Oh god, is it really the end? Am I ready for this to be over?)
> 
> Tags have been slightly amended to include the smut specifics. There is a little angst here, but it gets better I swear.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for coming on this twisty turny ride with me. I love every single one of you. 
> 
> Okay, let's go ❤

## Steve:

'Where the fuck is Obadiah?' Steve looks over at Sam and the realisation hits them at the same time. But no.

There's no way he could have gotten into the bunker - even if he figured out where it was. 

Unless he tracked the Quinjet there. He could have somehow managed to track Steve and Bucky from the car to the jet to the bunker and then waited for all of them to come fucking _here_ to save Tony _fucking_ Stark in his volt like locked down building, and left Bucky at the bunker with no one but Fury.

'Fury is with him,' Sam says, as if he can read Steve's mind, 'Fury can take care of it.'

'You're right, you're right,' Steve says, He trusts Fury - he does. But he also feels it in his gut - should have fought harder, should have listened to his instincts back at the bunker. He should have _never_ left Bucky, 'Maria, is everyone secure?'

'Everyone's ready, Steve, meet you at the extraction point in five minutes.'

Steve looks over at Sam, who's doing a final sweep of the area and still frowning at the lack of fight they put up here. 'Lets just pack it up and get to Maria. We'll get there faster in the jet anyway.'

Steve nods his understanding, but his gut is roiling. He flicks comms back to Fury to check in and warn him to be on the lookout for trouble.

And there's nothing on the line but static.

Fuck.

'Fuck!'

'What is it?' Sam looks over to him sharply.

'The comm channel for the bunker is out!' Steve shouts, slamming him shield into the wall and damaging Tony's ridiculously ostentatious mural (he can fucking _bill_ him), 'Sam!' His mind is reaching down into panic fast. The comms being out could be anything - but paired with the lack of activity here and the feeling in his gut, this is bad. This is really bad.

'Steve, stay with me, look at me,' Steve looks over as much for the ask as for the medic tone Sam is taking with him right now, 'We get to Maria, we get the fuck out, we get to the bunker. It's our fastest way there, that hasn't changed.'

Steve nods, but he doesn't say anything. He doesn't want to grace the idea with words, its a fucking awful plan. He should be taking his own jet straight to Bucky.

'There is no other jet, Steve. I know you know that.'

Sam Wilson needs to get out of Steve's fucking head. 'Am I wrong?' Steve says instead. Because he can see the etchings of panic in Sam's face too. Steve is not crazy. Something is wrong.

Sam gives Steve a look, like, 'I will not be feeding into your panic right now, Bro,' which is fair, because one of them has to keep calm. But it's also really fucking infuriating. And Steve is seething all the way to the Quinjet. Because he _knew_ he should have stayed. And he didn't. He didn't.

'Cap, Cap, Cap,' comes from behind them, like too smooth sarcasm and narcissistic privilege. 'Good to see you’re alive!' They have come up to the extraction point and the others are already waiting. Steve counts six people, so the rest are either still coming, or didn’t make it. 

Natasha and Clint are with Pepper and a dark haired, olive skinned, younger woman in ripped jeans and a tartan blazer, looking so much like Bucky it hurts Steve’s heart. It must be Becka. 

‘So, when do we get to chat about your betrayal?’ Tony says, smiling with slick humour (which Steve knows is a front for how angry he is right now) and eyebrows raised behind his stupid tinted glasses.

'Don't,' Steve says, and Sam must also be giving Tony a look because he actually doesn't continue to be a prick. He looks at them both and then to Becka and - miracle of miracles - keeps his mouth shut.

'Maria, how fast can we get back to the bunker.'

'We're not going back to the bunker, we-'

'We're going back to the bunker,' Steve interrupts, cutting her off with a hand gesture and a look that could kill.

'I don't-'

'Maria, comms are down at the bunker and Obadiah is nowhere to be found around here...' Sam says quietly, pulling Maria aside.

'Okay,' She says nodding, taking it on stride, 'Okay, change of plan, we head straight back to the bunker and Tony, Becka and Pepper stay on the jet.' 

'There's no one else coming with us?'

'We evacuated the rest of the staff with local law enforcement - only these three’ - she nods her head towards Tony, Pepper and Becka - ‘were under direct threat from Stane so...' Maria trails off at the look on Steve's face.

Because no. They got played. They all fucked off after the bait and left Bucky and Fury undermanned and undergunned - Obadiah could so easily snake his way into that bunker and grab Bucky. Steve's not even exactly sure what he wants him for... he just knows it's what's happened.

Tony has sidled over to them, Pepper and Becka being looked over by Natasha and Clint, both of whom have decided to ferry the guests onto the jet and into seats with smiles and 'there's nothing to see here's'. 'What is it, what's happened.'

'We think Stane may have gone to the bunker.'

'Why would he go for Bucky though,' Sam says what Steve is thinking, 'Tony and Bucky aren't even connected, Becka was just a carrot to get Steve out of hiding.'

'Because Steve would what? Be able to get me to see what Obadiah had been doing behind closed doors this whole time?' Tony asks.

'Stane always hated me,' Steve says between bitten teeth.

'I mean, Bucky makes good bait for us to keep this quiet from the authorities, draw us into a less well defenced fight back at the bunker, no police, no media...' Maria says. All of which is true.

'And his arm...' Tony says. And Steve snaps his head back to Tony.

'What?'

'I've been a fan of that technology for a while now, I only went to Minneapolis to see him. I wanted to collaborate, I wanted to expand on his bioengineering and create the kind of robotics this world has never seen-'

'Tony!' Steve whisper shouts, to not alert Becka, 'What the fuck would Stane want with his arm!'

'Experimentation of the effects of our energy on the actual wearer...' Tony starts to go green as he's talking, realising how it sounds. Steve is ready to punch him in the face. Natasha and Clint have prepped everything and the jet’s ready to go.

'Let's all just get on and fly as fast as this thing goes. We'll get there.' Sam says, 'The bunker can take a lot of damage before it gives anything up.' And Steve nods, because that's true. The comms could have been disabled by an E.M.P. 'It's not likely Stane is gonna have a tank.

And if Steve hadn't caught Tony's reaction to that he would have been placated. 

But Tony is _not_ placated.

Tony is scared. He knows something but he’s not saying. And Steve wants to strangle it out of him, but Becka is watching them all like she’s studying, and Steve doesn’t want to alarm her.

The flight to the bunker is the longest ten minutes of Steve's life. And then they get within an observable distance. And they can see what’s left of the bunker.

'No.' It's all Steve can say as they close in on the devastation at the entrance. There's nobody here. Just rubble.

'What is it?' Becka speaks up from her seat next to Pepper, lifting a tired head off Pepper's soft, sweater clad shoulder. Whatever she sees in Steve's expression has her sitting up in her seat, 'What is it? Is it Bucky? Is he okay?'

Steve can't answer. They haven't even landed yet, but he's out of his seat and he's dropping the hatch and he's jumping.

He's landing. He sticks it, but it's a little rough (he doesn't give a shit, a sprained ankle will be healed in an hour, who fucking cares) and he's running. And he's clearing rubble. He's ignoring whoever is behind him, the voices calling him, he's ripping his fingernails out just tearing this concrete apart to get inside.

And there's some kind of machine, some kind of robot. Just sitting past the rubble of the entrance. Open at the front, like it's been unzipped and left undone. It's huge. And it's weaponised. And as far as Steve can tell, it should house an actual person? At least that's how it looks.... Without anyone to operate it, it's sedentary.

He passes it by. Because he can see three bodies and they're all on the floor. There’s blood pooling around Fury, he sees him slumped over the couch. Obadiah is on his back, unconscious. Not much blood, but he's out cold. Nose broken, looks like.

Bucky... Bucky is on his side. In the fetal position. Like he's just gone to sleep here. Except he's covered in blood, it was at some stage, running down his face, but has since slowed if the congealed mess of drying blood on his forehead is any indication. He's pale. His normally olive complexion is dulled, bluish, and he's sweating. But he's breathing. He has a pulse. Steve has reached him and is feeling for it gingerly. He can hear the others entering behind him. He can hear Becka following them in, tired and tipsy as she is, refusing to stay behind in the jet if Bucky is meant to be inside.

He can hear Sam by his side, Natasha checking Fury, Clint directing Pepper and Tony through the worst of the rubble, all of them desperate to know what’s happened. Maria trying to plead with them to follow protocol and wait for backup - not knowing what could be waiting for them in here, giving up and doing a sweep herself.

But none of it matters.

Bucky is hurt, Bucky is fading, Bucky was here, _alone_.

Steve _left_ him.

He left him.

  
  


***

## Bucky

Bucky is dreaming.

In his dream it's quiet. It's soft. The air is warm. He can smell apple cider and he can feel Steve pressed against him.

He can hear Steve whispering to him. That low, sticky smooth register that seeps under Bucky's skin and makes him feel things. Things it probably isn't safe for his heart to feel.

Steve is whispering to him that he's safe. That he's home. That they can just stay, wrapped up in each other forever and nothing bad is going to happen.

Except as Steve continues, his whispers get louder, they turn to speaking, they turn sharp, like loud punches of sound.

And now Bucky is shaking.

Or someone is shaking him. It's hard to tell. But everything hurts. It's so hard to move, in his dream suddenly everything is closing in on him, collapsing, Steve is nearly shouting his name at him now and he needs to get to Steve, to tell him he can hear him, to get him to stop shouting, it's hurting Bucky's head.

But when he opens his eyes it's nothing that Bucky was expecting.

They open slowly, and the room takes a while to come into focus. Bucky is on his side maybe? He can feel the cold, hard floor beneath him. And he can see, though not very well, a lot of mess, and above him, space opening up towards an arched concrete ceiling. And as Bucky starts to let the room around him make sense he remembers where he is. And he reaches out a hand to grab the first thing it can find.

'Bucky, Jesus, fuck, Bucky!' It's Steve, he's still shouting, but now, it sounds strangled, strained, like he's shouting around too much anger, too much fear.

'Mmm... mma...' Bucky says. Which... does not in any way resemble a word. Or words. It's more of a grunt. And it's probably involuntary. Because everything in his body is screaming at him not to move. He aches _everywhere_. He remembers only one other time in his life when he's ever felt this awful. And that was a long time ago.

Oh. Becks. Becka! Bucky grips his hand even tighter into what he's holding onto and Steve doesn't even flinch. 'What's wrong Bucky, what hurts, what do you need. Talk to me'

'Bah...' Bucky starts, motor function still failing him, it's frustrating, but also he feels kinda dizzy and nauseated. He lets his head drop back, rather than lifting it to try to look over at Steve, who he can now see in his periphery, and who, at the unintelligible sounds Bucky is making, has leant even closer, further over him, to appear right on top of Bucky, hovering over him.

  
  


'Baby? Babe? Bucky? Can you hear me?'

Bucky nods his head because it's easier than speaking.

'Can you see? Are you in pain?' Bucky nods again and then looks, really looks up at Steve, hovering over him, frowning, looking awfully distressed with deep lines through his forehead and his mouth pouting almost comically. 'It's me Steve.'

To which Bucky actually manages to roll his eyes. Because yeah, good job, big guy, Bucky can actually recognise the love of his life. Duh. Wait... what?

Maybe forget he said that.

'Beck,' Bucky finally manages to say, as he tries and fails to sit up.

‘Shush ush ush, she's fine,' Steve says, shushing Bucky like he's some kind of skittish animal and trying to push him back down to lay flat, 'She's with me, I've got her.'

Oh thank god. Bucky lets his eyes close for a second. She's okay.

'I've got Sam here to take a look at you.'

'Is Nick okay?' Bucky asks, though it comes out kind of slurred. But yay - he is managing whole sentences. and opening his eyes again to look back up at Steve's beautiful face.

'Yeah, Buck, he's fine. He was out cold, just like you, but he's gonna be okay.'

'Are you ‘kay?'

'Me?' Steve says, raising his eyebrows, 'I'm fine, I'm fine, there were hardly any guys there at all by the time we got there.'

'Oh,' Bucky says, 'Oh. I guess ‘cause they were coming here.'

'Yeah, well, Obadiah was anyway,' Steve says, his voice cold and sharp again.

'Is he okay?' Bucky asks. Cause he wants to know. He does, wants to know if he hurt him irreparably. He doesn't want that.

'Who? Stane?' Steve asks, dripping with disgust.

'I hit him pretty hard,' Bucky says, finally winning the battle to sit up, as Steve is seemingly too surprised by Bucky's statement to keep the pressure on him.

'He's unconscious but he'll live,' Steve says, curious now, 'You hit him?'

'Yeah.'

'Really?' Steve asks, and Bucky tries (and probably fails) to lift one unimpressed eyebrow at him, 'Okay, okay, you just really knocked him out there, Buck.'

And Bucky would be lying if he said the look in Steve's eye didn't give him some very inappropriate ideas.

He manages to sit all the way up and then has to grab onto Steve's arm to stop from toppling back over. And he's grabbed Steve with his prosthetic, and in his haste, quite firmly, and Steve is looking down at where Bucky's hand is squeezing his arm and raises his eyebrows again.

'You hit him with that?' he asks and Bucky nods. 'Okay, makes sense,’ and nods his own head as if he's just solved some kind of problem.

'Steve?'

'Yeah, Buck?'

'Where's Becks?' Bucky finally gets the words all the way out and Steve jumps to action.

'Oh, she's here, she's right here, let me get her,' and he's starting to try and stand up, which is not great as Bucky's still holding on to his arm and starts to go with him, 'Oh, god,'

‘Bucky, just relax,’ Sam’s voice comes to him from not far away, ‘Steve don’t let him try and move too quickly, he’s lost a lot of blood, we need to get him to a hospital.’

‘Becks,’ Bucky says again, cutting Steve off before he can start to panic. A little blood loss is nothing Bucky hasn’t had before. The way Steve is suddenly wincing means Bucky probably said that last bit out loud. But nobody has time to dwell on it, because Becka is muscling her way over, Bucky moves his eyes as far as he can stretch them without moving his body, to see her on wobbly legs, picking her way over to him, despite Tony Stark attempting to hold her back.

‘Lemme go you big oaf,’ She says with a sharp elbow (Bucky knows first hand how sharp those little elbows are) and runs over, trips, rights herself and collapses at Bucky’s side. She’s careful not to jostle him, but he can feel the vibrating energy of how much she just wants to _grab_ him. ‘Buck!’ she breathes out his name, ‘Oh Bucky, are you okay?’

‘I’m good, I’m fine,’ Bucky says, enunciating as well as his face will allow.

‘We just want to take him in for some quick tests, make sure it’s not a concussion, that sort of thing,’ Sam lies, and bless him. Bucky would kiss him if he could. 

He doesn’t. He uses what gas he has left in the tank to reach out and grab Beck’s little hand in his. ‘Love you B.’

‘Love you more, you idiot!’ she says through tears. And Bucky can see Steve smiling in his periphery. He sees Sam on the phone. He turns his head to look up at Steve.

‘Look after her for me?’ he says quietly, and he hears Becks scoff and smiles. But Steve is looking very serious.

‘I’ll keep her safe,’ he says, ‘I promise.’ And Bucky knows he’s eating himself up over this. But he shouldn’t. Bucky held it together and he won. He did good. And he’s so fucking happy his heart is light enough to burst right out of his chest and fly away.

‘I did good, Steve,’ Bucky manages to say, slurring again as he gets tired, ‘I kept _myself_ safe this time.’ And he feels Steve run his hands through Bucky’s hair. Lets it let him close his eyes. 

‘You did _so_ good baby,’ he hears as he lets himself drift off.

Oh Becks is going to give him so much shit about the ‘baby’. Geez.

Worth it, though.

***

They discharge him from the hospital two days later. Transfusions (only two, no biggie) a drip, some bedrest. Observation for the head injury. But they can’t justify keeping him in the bed any longer, when there are people who need it. And Bucky doesn’t know how or who - but it’s all being paid for outside of his insurance. Probably some shady government faction that’s prepared to keep their employees living fake lives under fake names, no autonomy, no freedom, for the sake of the bottom line.

But yeah, he’s not going to complain about the free hospital stay.

And Becks has barely left his side. Tony popped in briefly to tell Bucky that between figuring out how to clean out the crap from his company, put Obadiah on trial for the subterfuge, get Pepper off his back about never having listened to any of her fears re said douchebag and tearing Steve a new one for disappearing on him and remaining presumed dead for however long - he’s still on board to fund Bucky’s research. 

‘I heard you, you know,’ he says to Bucky, sitting at his bedside looking ridiculously uncomfortable in the pink plastic chair as Becka paces behind him, ‘That day at the conference. I heard what you said about me hoarding my clean energy research.’ Tony pauses, probably to make sure he has Bucky’s undivided attention (his phone won’t stop pinging, because Steve _will not stop_ texting him - and Bucky fucking _loves_ it). ‘And you were right.’

Okay wow. That’s a big step for Tony Stark to take. Admitting he was wrong about something.

‘And I think, combined with your research, with your work, we can keep on from where Obadiah had twisted all of my ideas’ - he holds up a hand to stop Bucky from interrupting - ‘We’ll strip it right back. But think of the potential!’

Bucky probably gives him the murder look that Becks is always complaining about.

‘Think how much lighter that arm would be if the battery was one tenth the size! Think of the robotic applications for spinal cord injuries! Think about it!’ And Bucky must not look totally convinced, because Tony drops the sales pitch and looks the most earnest Bucky has seen him in their admittedly short acquaintance, ‘Just - think about it.’

He takes a second to properly vet the idea - and it’s not terrible. ‘Alright - I’ll think about it.’

‘You could come and work for me!’

‘That’s not actually the draw card you think it is,’ Bucky says, smiling at the way Becks is cackling in the background. Tony rolls his eyes at him, but he’s smiling too. So Bucky thinks maybe this has the potential to be something interesting. ‘But I’ll think about it.’

‘You’re a tough sell kid,’ Tony says, getting up from his chair, ‘I like that about you.’

Bucky waves him out, much more energy than he’s had in the past two days. Despite the questionable nature of the hospital food. And Becks helps him pack up what little he has with him and get downstairs to a cab. 

They’re back in New York, so traffic sucks, and he’s going home to his shitty apartment, no farm house in an apple orchard like he’s been daydreaming about endlessly, stuck in that hospital bed. But it’s home. There’s something about the feeling of collapsing into your own bed when you get home from a trip that just can’t be replicated. That comfort. That sense of ‘I’m home’, ‘I’m safe’. The way it just feels right. 

‘Are you sure you’re gonna be okay here B?’ Becka asks, watching him dig into the divot of his own body into the mattress, ‘I could stay? I could camp out on the couch? Watch some Swayze with you?’

‘Tempting,’ Bucky says, turning over to starfish on the bed and sigh with content, ‘But no. I’m okay Becks.’

‘Uh huh, uh huh,’ She says, nodding, ‘And this brush off wouldn’t have anything to do with a six foot and then some, beefy blonde superhero who calls you _‘baby’_ would it now?’

‘Never Becks, I would never ditch you for some perfect specimen of manhood, who may or may not be on his way over right now to rail me into this mattress-’

‘Oh god! Stop!’ Becka shouts, throwing her hands over her ears, ‘Ew! Okay, ew! I’m going, I’m going.’

‘I’m kidding Becks, I’m kidding. I just need a breather,’ he says, fondness creeping into his voice, ‘But I promise to call you if I get lonely, okay?’

‘I will hold you to that,’ she says, backing out of the studio apartment with her finger pointed at him, ‘And I’ll be calling to check in on you in a couple of hours okay? So keep your fancy new Stark Tech phone on please.’

Which is totally fair. He’s probably scarred her for life with all the reasons for his not picking up the phone in the last week. ‘I promise.’

She blows him a million kisses from the doorway like the adorable idiot that she is and then closes the door behind her. 

And he’s alone. 

He must drift off for a bit, because it feels like only a few seconds later that someone is barreling in through the door and shouting his name.

He sits up in a panic and finds Steve coming to an abrupbt stop from stumbling into the apartment, sheepish as all hell and stooping his shoulders like he can fold in on himself.

‘Steve?’ he says, wiping sleep out of his eyes, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You left your door unlocked, Buck! Do you know how dangerous that is?’

‘Oh, no Becks was just here, I was about to lock it I swear.’

‘I was knocking,’ Steve narrows his eyes, ‘I called out to you?’

‘Oh, yeah, I think I kinda nodded off.’ Now it’s Bucky’s turn to be sheepish. ‘Won’t happen again.’

‘Are you okay? Is your head okay?’ Steve is asking, coming over to the bed at the far end of the studio apartment, bypassing the messy kitchenette and the clean laundry flung across the couch, looking more beautiful than should be legal in jeans and a duck egg blue knit sweater.

‘I’m fine, I feel good today,’ Bucky replies, and it’s true.

‘You look better,’ Steve says, sitting down next to where Bucky is now sitting up in his bed.

‘I look awful,’ Bucky says. Because he’s in old, threadbare sweats that Becks had grabbed for him to wear in the hospital, they have little holes through them, the neck of his sweater is so worn now it's wide enough that you can see the bruises across his collarbone from the explosion. And he may have had fluids pumping into him for the last few days, but he still feels dry and gross, like he needs a shower. Or ten. His hair is so oily he pulled it back into a ponytail and tried to forget that it existed.

‘You look like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Buck.’ Steve reaches up to gently place his hand on Bucky’s cheek. ‘You look perfect.’

It’s surely a lie, but the look on Steve’s face makes it seem true. And Bucky wants to kiss him. He wants to crawl into his lap and just be held. He wants to know that those feelings are warranted - because honestly? Now that they’re back in the real world… Do they even really know each other?

‘I can hear you thinking, Bucky,’ Steve says, ‘What’s wrong.’

‘What now?’ Bucky says, and at Steve’s questioning look he tries to elaborate, ‘What’s going to happen to us now? To you?’ He puts a hand up to place it over Steve’s on his cheek and bring it down to the bed. But he doesn’t let go, ‘Do you have to go back into hiding? Are we even allowed to see each other any more?’

_‘Yes_.’ It’s so emphatic Bucky almost laughs, ‘We are, and no. I don’t have to go back into hiding. I don’t know what or how yet, but Fury and Tony are working on something. I’m going to be able to be myself, Buck. And I get to choose what I do, and who I see.’

Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand on the bed. Because that is such good news. Steve deserves to get to be a real person again. To have a life. ‘That’s awesome, Steve.’

‘And I want to see you, Bucky,’ Steve says, picking up speed, ‘I want to figure out what this is with you. I want to know if it's real, too. I think it is, I just…’

‘Maybe we need to start again from the beginning.’

‘Okay, but not the beginning, Bucky,’ Steve says, smiling, lifting Bucky’s held hand to his lips, ‘We could just slow down a bit. Go out for dinner. Get drinks… do normal people things.’

‘Sure, we could do that,’ Bucky says, and the feel of Steve’s lips on his knuckles has him closing his eyes, ‘Or we could skip that bit and try that thing you were talking about with the ropes?’

‘Bucky,’ Steve says, admonishing, ‘You just said-’

‘No, I know, but hear me out,’ Bucky says, opening his eyes to watch Steve watching him, ‘We can do all that stuff tomorrow, but it’s been-’ Bucky checks the clock on the wall -’nearly sixty hours since I had you inside me Stevie, and that’s just too long.’ It hits exactly like he’s hoping it will. Steve’s pupils dilating, he leans in to Bucky and breathes deeply.

‘Oh, Buck,’ he says, ‘You can’t just _say_ that.’

‘But I feel stressed, Steve,’ he says, and even as playful as his voice is, he sees the change in Steve’s countenance immediately, ‘I need you to make me feel better…’

‘You,’ Steve says, swallowing, ‘Are a menace Bucky Barnes.’

Bucky nods, because he knows that's true. But also, Steve’s hands on him are like a balm. He knows how good it's going to feel to have Steve over him, inside him, around him, and he wants it. Wants to remember it again, he’s been dreaming about it. ‘You just… you make me feel good Steve. And if we’re going to do this for real, see each other, date or whatever, I want this to be part of it,’ he shifts his body closer to Steve on the bed, ‘I want to get to have this, get to feel good, get to make you feel good too.’ 

And Steve is nodding now. ‘You can have it, Bucky,’ Steve says softly, pulling Bucky into his lap, wrapping Bucky’s legs around his waist, ‘You can have everything you want.’

‘I want you, Steve.’

‘Okay. Okay,’ Steve says, and kisses Bucky, so so softly, pulling back after barely touching his lips, ‘Do you really want the ropes?’ 

Bucky nods, probably a little too enthusiastically. But it's worth it for the look on Steve’s face.

‘Alright, well I need to go get some stuff, will you be okay here?’ 

‘I need a shower anyway,’ Bucky says with a smile, reaching up to kiss Steve before he can extricate himself from Bucky’s octopus hold, ‘get nice and clean.’

Steve kisses Bucky a little harder at that, a little more erratically, but he pulls back reluctantly to let Bucky go. ‘Okay, if I dont go now, I’ll never leave. But I’ll be right back.’

He slides off the bed and makes his way to the door, ‘Lock this behind me please,’ he says, authority in his voice sending shivers down Bucky’s spine.

‘Yes Sir,’ Bucky says with a smile and Steve shakes his head at him, but his eyes are bright, his cheeks pink. 

‘Menace,’ he says as he’s shutting the door, and Bucky laughs as he gets up to lock it as asked. 

Bucky shoots a quick text to Becka to tell her he's fine and he's catching up with Steve (and essentially 'do not disturb' but mostly just to mess with her). He makes his way into the shower and finally washes his hair. He washes it twice, conditions it, puts some coconut oil through it, moisturises his whole body. He’s cleaned himself out as well as he can with his fingers and it should be fine. He pulls on his favourite underwear - navy blue trunks with a fake calvin klein waistband, and he doesn’t get a chance to grab any other clothes before he hears the knock at the door. 

He forgoes teasing Steve the way he loves to, as soon as he sees him. Because, though he hasn’t changed his outfit at all, this is a different Steve. This is not goofy, adorable Steve, this is serious, in charge Steve. He’s standing straight, his shoulders are so broad and strong, so proudly displayed, it makes him look huge. He’s carrying a duffle bag and his eyes are like fire. Burning for Bucky.

Jesus. Bucky’s imagination still has nothing on the real thing. And in the back of his mind he’s giddy, because he maybe gets to have this for real. Like, _everyday_ (within reason, obviously) but yeah. On a continuing basis. Steve looking at him like he’s the whole world. _Oh_ , Bucky could get used to this real fast.

‘Okay, rules,’ Steve says by way of greeting, stepping into the apartment, eyeing Bucky up and down hungrily as he does, ‘You need a safeword, we do ropes today but no other sensory deprivation until we get a little better at this, I know what you’re like Bucky.’ And yeah, okay. That’s fair. ‘And we go slow today, we can build up to the harder stuff over time.’

Bucky nods, because honestly, he doesn’t want it too hard anyway - he just wants Steve to take care of him, to mark him up a little, marks that were made with care - not hate, not like the bruises he has currently. He wants his body to be a map for pleasure now, not greed, or trauma, or narcissism. He wants it to be with his own permission.

‘What’s your safe word Buck?’

They’ve talked about this a little over the last few days, via text, when Steve was trying to keep him entertained, telling him stories about how he came to be so dominant. ‘Minneapolis,’ Bucky says, smiling. 

‘And have you eaten today, baby?’

‘I had lunch a few hours ago. I drank a bottle of water since you left.’

Steve nods, pleased. ‘Good, okay, lets move into the middle of the room’

Steve removes the soft, navy blue ropes from his bag, placing his duffle on the couch and then moves back over to where Bucky is standing at the foot of his bed.

‘I’m going to put this down on top of the carpet, just to keep things softer for your knees,’ Steve says, lifting the fleece blanket from the bed onto the floor and gesturing for Bucky to stand on it, ‘Next time we can do this at my place, I’ve got cushions and coverings that won’t stain,’ (Bucky is nodding, but he’s watching Steve’s lips move as he speaks, and not properly listening to the words he’s saying. Steve has really nice lips), ‘I’m going to take these off you now, okay?’ 

Bucky keeps nodding and is rewarded for his compliance with a kneeling Steve, who has dropped down in front of Bucky, to slowly peel his favourite underwear down over his very interested dick, and newly moisturised thighs. Steve leans in and presses soft kisses to each of them, tosses the underwear and then runs his fingers up and down Bucky’s quadriceps, making Bucky shiver and his nerve endings light up.

‘I’m going to tie your ankles to your thighs today Buck,’ Steve says, looking up at Bucky from under those ridiculous eyelashes, 'And your arms behind your back.’ Bucky shivers again at that mental image, ‘Is it going to be okay for your prosthetic to get tied back?’

‘It should be fine,’ Bucky says, the position shouldn’t put any extra pressure on his residual limb, and if it does they can change it up, they’ll work it out. Bucky trusts Steve, ‘If it’s not I’ll tell you right away.’ He says the last preempting Steve’s question. And gets the most beautiful smile from Steve for his trouble.

‘Okay,’ Steve grasps Bucky’s hand and exerts a little pressure to pull him down, ‘Sit down here in front of me Buck, put your knees to your chest for me.’

Bucky does as he's asked quickly and carefully.

‘Brace yourself with your arms behind you, baby.’

Bucky closes his eyes to the sound of Steve calling him _baby_ in that commanding voice and does as he’s told. Putting both hands behind him on the floor to take his weight. He opens his eyes again to Steve watching him. Steve grasps one of Bucky’s ankles and pulls his leg out straight. Then puts one of his big hands around the other ankle.

‘I’m going to tie the rope around your ankle first, and then loop it all the way around your upper thigh, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Bucky says breathlessly, already stifling a gasp at the feel of the rope as it touches his skin. It’s not like polyester rope, it’s hemp, according to Steve, and so much softer than he was expecting.

Steve has a look of abject concentration on his face as he loops the rope, wraps it around Bucky’s ankle and starts to tie a complicated knot. His brow is furrowed and his lips are pursed, and Bucky can’t help but smile at how serious he is, at the care he’s taking. Steve sees the smile when he looks up to check in on Bucky, raising one eyebrow and clamping down on his own returning smile, by the look of the tick is his cheek. 

He pushes Bucky’s ankle back into his thigh, keeping the bend of his knee tight, but not painful, and then loops the extending rope from the tie at his ankle around the top of his thigh. And it’s tight. It’s tight enough that Bucky feels restrained. As he moves the rope around Bucky’s skin, Bucky can feel himself letting go. He can feel himself putting his trust into Steve to catch him. To keep him safe. To remake his pain with pleasure. 

And Steve. Steve is tracing the rope around Bucky’s thigh with reverence. His hands follow the lines he’s created in Bucky’s skin, skimming across Bucky’s thighs, warming Bucky where they touch him, shooting sparks through Bucky. Enough that his breathing is getting erratic. He’s so hard it’s painful, and for all of the attention Steve is paying to the ropes, and the marks they leave in Bucky’s thighs, he has not touched Bucky’s dick, has barely even brushed by it with his long fingers.

Steve repeats the process with the other leg. Which is harder on Bucky - he has less balance now, putting all his weight onto his hands behind him. And he feels like he’s now passed all control over to Steve. With every loop of the ropes, every knot Steve intricately ties, he’s giving more of himself over to Steve. And he’s feeling lighter. He’s feeling free in a way he hasn’t felt in so long. 

Steve is finally happy with the ropes, they loop around Bucky’s ankles once, and around his thighs and calves three times, with a knot at each loop where his thigh is pressed against his calf, so it doesn’t dig into him. There’s no pain, though he can feel it’s secure. Steve helps Bucky push forward slowly, hand on him the whole time, maneuvering him into a kneeling position. 

‘How does it feel, Buck?’ Steve asks him softly, kneeling in front of him, ‘Is it too tight? Does it hurt?’

‘It feels good,’ Bucky says, though it’s an effort to check in with himself, he’s feeling so relaxed, ‘It feels safe.’

Steve smiles. He leans in and kisses Bucky, taking a hold of both of his hands, reaching them around to Bucky’s back as his lips softly press against Bucky’s. He pulls back enough to talk, though his arms are around Bucky, holding his hands firmly behind him, ‘I’m going to do a simple box tie, Buck, first your wrists, then your upper arms and around your chest.’

Bucky nods, to show that he’s keeping up.

‘I’m going to make sure I don’t tie across any pressure points okay? I don’t want it to hurt - I want it to feel good.’ Steve talks as he stands, getting another length of the dark blue rope and then coming to stand behind Bucky.

‘Okay,’ Bucky says, following Steve’s movement as much as he can, tied as he is, twisting his upper body. Careful not to move his untied arms. Wanting to be good.

‘Okay,’ Steve kneels down behind Bucky and takes a hold of his arms gently, ‘So if I press here, that’s not tender is it?’ Steve is pressing into a point just above Bucky’s wrist on his right arm, and he can feel the squeeze, but it doesn’t hurt, or feel as instantly relaxing as when Steve hits one of his pressure points.

Bucky shakes his head, ‘I can feel it, but it’s not tender.’

‘Good, that’s good Buck.’ Steve gets Bucky to bend his arms at the elbows and then holds them together so that his hands are just touching the opposite inner elbow. Bucky can’t see him, but he can feel him wrap the rope around and around the point above his wrists where they meet. With each loop around his wrists he feels more and more connected to Steve. He feels Steve make some kind of tie and then press into the flesh of Bucky’s upper right arm, ‘How about here, is it tender here?’

‘Uh, uh,’ Bucky says, shaking his head.

‘Good, You’re doing so good, baby.’ Bucky closes his eyes to that word again as Steve starts to wrap the rope from his back, around his chest, kissing Bucky slow and soft as he passes by his chest, making sure the rope is sitting at the right point above his nipples, still not touching his painfully hard cock, which is standing straight up against his stomach now. Bucky looks down at the ropes around his thighs as Steve winds around to his back again. The way the rope cuts into his skin, but only enough so he can feel it’s _there_ , not enough to cause any pain, sends a thrill through him. He wonders what kind of marks they might leave behind when they come off… will he be able to see them? 

Steve winds the rope around again, looping it around from behind his chest this time, then spends some time threading it all together.

‘Oh, Buck,’ he says, squeezing Bucky’s arms and resting his head on Bucky’s shoulder. ‘You look so beautiful like this.’

‘Feels good, Stevie.’

‘That’s good, Buck,’ Steve says, nipping at Bucky’s ear, ‘Can you sit nice and still for me?’

Bucky nods.

‘Good, I want you to watch, okay Buck?’ Steve asks, getting up from behind Bucky and coming around to stand in front of him, ‘You just keep your eyes on me.’

And as Steve speaks, he slowly starts to strip. Which, well Bucky certainly didn’t need a command to keep his eyes on Steve. He couldn’t keep them off him if he tried. 

Steve starts with his sweater - that gorgeous sweater - slowly dragging it up his body, over those shoulders, up and over his head, his arms, and tosses it aside. Miles and miles of smooth, pale sand coloured skin, the muscles in his chest so perfectly defined it’s like a sculpture. And Bucky supposes it is in a way, Steve, like this, his body, is a representation of all the goodness inside him. The serum he was given, bringing all of Steve’s strength to the surface. And Bucky gets to watch him show it off, have it all revealed to him. And he’s fully aware of how much Steve is trusting him with his body. 

He’s overwhelmed by it.

Steve keeps his eyes on Bucky as he unbuttons his fly, he’s slowly pulling his jeans down where they’re straining over the giant bulge of his erection, hidden behind tight white boxers, already wet at the front from Steve’s arousal. Bucky’s mouth is watering at the thought of it. He remembers exactly what Steve tastes like.

Steve pulls them off one leg, then the other, tossing them aside too. His feet are already bare, Bucky doesn't remember how that happened, and he doesn’t care. He does notice that even Steve’s feet are somehow beautiful. Bucky isn’t sure he’s ever actually seen Steve naked like this - except for that one time in the shower, and by then Bucky was in the wrong headspace to even notice his surroundings. But every inch of Steve is gorgeous, his legs are so thick and strong, so smooth and long, Bucky really just wants to bite into the flesh of his thighs - though he wouldn’t be allowed. Maybe that’s something he could ask for, for next time. 

And then Steve is taking the underwear off too, letting his cock spring free, so full and hard it’s hitting his stomach. Sticky and leaking. 

‘You make me so hard, Buck, can you see?’

Bucky nods, he doesn’t trust his voice at all right now.

‘I know you want to taste this, but it’s not your turn Bucky,’ Steve says, stalking right up to where Bucky is kneeling, almost touching him. Bucky’s mouth is so close to Steve’s dick he could reach out to it with his tongue and taste it. ‘You don’t get to touch at all, but I get to touch you, baby.’

Bucky has to bite back the wine that wants to escape at Steve’s words. His _voice_.

Steve walks around behind him, where Bucky can’t see, and slowly pushes him forward. Bucky’s face down on his floor, bound, totally at Steve’s mercy, his cock trapped underneath him and completely untouched, But he can feel the heat pooling in him, he can feel his orgasm start to build and it’s too soon.

‘I’m gonna open you up, then you’ll get just what you asked for, Buck, you get me inside you.’

Bucky would reach out to touch him if he could, but he can’t move, and something about that makes it all even hotter. Steve is going to totally wreck him, and Bucky wants it so bad it hurts.

Steve has lube with him, of course he does, but Bucky isn’t really paying attention to what’s happening now, he can just feel the slide of the slick around his hole, can feel the sensitive nerves there light up with the pressure, can feel himself start to rock into Steve, wanting more, wanting everything.

Steve is draped over Bucky, his face over Bucky’s shoulder, he’s kissing Bucky’s neck and setting him on fire. He’s whispering into Bucky’s ear, how good he is, how good he feels, how he loves the little noises Bucky makes, the noises Bucky isn’t even aware he’s making. And _god_ his _voice_. Bucky could come from nothing but Steve’s voice in his ear. And he’s smiling, because he can have that now. He can ask Steve for anything, and Steve will give it to him.

Bucky is the luckiest man on the planet.

Before long he’s chasing Steve’s finger, pushing his hips back as much as he can, restrained like this, and Steve’s finger - sliding, searching - becomes two - stretching, opening - and Bucky is aware now of the way his breathing is coming in short hard bursts. And he is making bitten off little moans, trying to push Steve deeper into himself, chasing the heat, the warmth, the pleasure pulsing out and into his body.

And once Steve has three fingers in him, he feels Steve’s tongue too, Steve’s lips, Steve telling him how good he tastes, how much he loves this. 

Bucky loves him too. Loves _it_ he means. Loves _it_. He doesn’t Love Steve. Yet. He certainly isn’t going to tell him that (they need to work out if this is even real first - don't they? But fuck, it feels real. It all feels so real. And maybe that’s because it is). 

And it doesn’t even matter, because Steve’s fingers have disappeared and his arms are around Bucky now, and he’s asking, ‘You ready baby?’

Bucky nods, so hard and fast it hurts his head. And then Steve is lifting him up into his lap with one arm around Bucky’s chest, the other guiding Bucky down onto his cock. Bucky can feel the head of it pressing against him. Can feel it slide along his hole, so slick from the lube and Steve’s tongue. And then he can feel it pushing into him, so slowly, too slowly, and he pushes back, fucks himself down onto Steve and relishes the way Steve sucks in a breath. 

He’s got a hand around Bucky’s chin and he’s pulling Bucky’s face back, ‘So eager, baby,’ he’s saying, gripping Bucky tight enough to leave a mark, marks Bucky can treasure, and Bucky reaches back to Steve’s lips to catch them in his own. 

And Steve kisses him with a ferocity Bucky has been missing his whole life. Steve is sucking on bucky’s toungue, he’s fucking into his mouth, he’s biting at his lips. And Bucky is so lost. He can feel all of Steve inside him, so much, so full. And he can feel the pull of the ropes, digging into him, binding him, grounding him. His feet on Steve’s thighs, Steve basically holding him up to fuck up into him, picking up the pace as he loses himself in Bucky, and Bucky stretched as far as his body will stretch to keep kissing Steve because he never wants to stop. He can’t hold back anymore, it's too much, all of it, and it's crashing over him. He’s coming, arching his back and crying out into Steve’s mouth and Steve loses it with him, filling Bucky with hot come, tightening his hold on Bucky to bruising.

And suddenly Steve is lifting him back onto the blanket, untying the ropes and rubbing his arm, ‘How’s your prosthetic Baby, how’s your arm, is it sore? Can I touch it?’

Bucky is a little slow on the uptake, he’s still sort of floating from the sex, coming down from the elation of his orgasm, leaking come everywhere and squinting up at Steve, who’s looking down at him with a frown. ‘Huh?’

‘Baby? You okay?’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, Stevie, hun, I’m good, I’m great.’ He may or may not be laughing at Steve a little.

‘And you’re arm’s okay?’

‘Yeah, maybe give me a second to catch my breath.’

‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ Steve is saying, untying the ropes from his legs and rubbing them vigorously to get circulation back. 

Bucky is a little sore, his arms are a little stiff, his legs could use a massage, but he’s feeling so amazing it’s a joke. And he really can’t help laughing at Steve. Who is now staring at Bucky looking less than impressed. ‘Steve I’m so good, I feel so good, honestly.’ And Steve looks a little disappointed so Bucky lets him off the hook, ‘But a massage would be nice, my legs are a little cramped.’

Steve wastes no time kneading his glorious hands into Bucky’s calf muscles, working up to Bucky’s thighs and Bucky is melting. Steve is wrapping him up in the comforter from the bed and Bucky would rather not get come all over it, but he also recognises that Steve is trying to look after him right now, and he’s going to let him. Because he loves it, he really does.

‘Hey, Stevie,’ Bucky says, drawing Steve’s attention away from his thighs so he can lean over and kiss him softly on the corner of his mouth, ‘Thank you for looking after me, you made me feel perfect,’ he kisses him once more, holding out his metal hand to fit their fingers together, You gave me everything I wanted.’

‘Anytime,’ Steve says smiling his soft smile that he only uses for Bucky, squeezing Bucky’s metal fingers and recognising that for the gesture it is, ‘I promise.’

And Bucky’s heart is ready to explode. Because he knows Steve always keeps his promises. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! The end folks!!
> 
> I hope you liked it ❤ I'll be back soon with more Stucky, I just can't get enough of these adorable idiots.
> 
> Hopefully I'll see you there!
> 
> come find me in the comments (I love hearing from you!) Or on Tumblr and Twitter:
> 
> [darter-blue](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darter-blue) on tumblr
> 
> [@beclouise13](https://twitter.com/beclouise13) on twitter

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Art] Apply Firm Pressure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26687575) by [Call_Me_Kayyyyy (Cheeky9274)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheeky9274/pseuds/Call_Me_Kayyyyy)




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